Thermal management is a key consideration in the design of wearable electronic devices such as head-mounted display (HMD) devices, watches, or any other device that is designed to be worn by an individual during operation. Thermal dissipation capacity for wearable electronic devices presents unique challenges due to the limited area of the surfaces available to dissipate heat. For example, in wearable electronic devices that include a housing enclosing heat-emitting components, the housing itself may have insufficient surface area to remain at or below an allowable surface temperature while passively dissipating the full amount of the heat generated by the electronic components.
These design challenges may be exacerbated under various circumstances, such as when a housing that encloses heat generating electronic components is likely to come into contact with a user's skin. For example, HMD devices often include a display assembly that includes electronic components that emit substantial amounts of heat while also including a display component that must be positioned toward the front of the user's head in order to effectively generate images that are visible to the user. Due to being positioned toward the front of the user's head, such display assemblies can be natural grab points for the user when putting-on or taking-off the HMD device. The grab points may not always be optimal surfaces for thermal dissipation. Thus, available surface area on HMD devices can be further limited. Such issues present additional design challenges.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.